James 2:10

Keep. Gr. tereo, “to guard,” “to attend to carefully.” James here sets forth the example of a church member who supposedly keeps the whole law, save for one point.

He does not say that such an example actually exists.

Offend. Gr. ptaio, “to stumble,” “to fail in one’s duty.”

Point. The law is not a mere collection of isolated precepts; it is a perfect harmonious transcript of the divine will. All the precepts are manifestations of love at work, either to God or to our fellow men. To select that part of the law that is convenient and to ignore the claims of the rest, even if in only one detail, reveals a desire to do our own will and not God’s. The unity of love is broken and the basis sin of selfish willfulness appears.

Guilty of all. Lawbreaking, whether civil or religious, need not be a violation of all the laws — one violation is enough. The basic question if loyalty to authority is the primary problem, and one violation is sufficient to show the disposition of the heart.

“A glass that is struck at only one point is nevertheless shattered. The law is not a set of ten pins, one of which may be knocked down while the others are left standing. The law is a unit, its unity is love; to violate it at one point is to violate love as such, the whole of it” (R. C. H. Lenski, Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the Epistle of James, Wartburg Press, Columbus, Ohio, 1946, p. 572).

As a chain is snapped by the failure of its weakest link, as one note may spoil the whole harmony, as one wounded part injures the entire body, or as leprosy in any part causes the whole man to be called leprous, so the breaking of one commandment spoils the completeness and harmony of the whole law for the transgressor.